This blog continues my effort to chronicle my writing life, my efforts to market my work, and now my life as co-owner of a small press. I use this blog to explore the thoughts, feelings, and very nature of being an author and a publisher. I am the author of 5 detective novels, 4 action thrillers and a marketing manual. I am also the editorial director of Intrigue Publishing. I am active in local writer’s organizations and co-founded the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity conference.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Recently I posted a link to my blog on a LinkedIn group
called Writers and Author’s Circle.It
was the post about how to have a successful agent pitch session.I quickly received this comment: “This is not
the place to self advertise your commercially- motivated blog. If you want to
join a conversation you are very welcome but remove this spam; stuff like this
is driving the proper members away.”I just as quickly left this group (so the proper members
wouldn’t be driven away) but the incident did get me thinking about this
process.Is my blog commercially
motivated?I will admit that I first
started blogging years ago because all the marketing experts at the time were
saying that an author HAD to have a blog.Without one, no one would ever know about your books and you would never
have any sales.Did it work?Does my
blog give me greater visibility?I think
so.Has it led to book sales? I highly
doubt it.If that ever was a path to
book sales, I don’t think it is now.Facebook and Twitter are much more efficient for that purpose.Besides, I believe I have a lot more writers
than readers here, and other authors are not the best market for my
novels.Of course there ARE more commercial blogs.Fiction writers who blog about their
characters every week, and nonfiction writers who blog about their topic of
expertise probably do boost their sales.Bloggers that feature author interviews or sample chapters certainly aim
to boost their guests’ sales.And there
is still a strong belief among authors that going on a blog tour will generate
book sales.I launched this blog based on the idea that readers would
want to know what’s involved in being a novelist, to see the writer’s life from
the inside.Over time it has evolved
into a place where I share what I’ve learned about this passion and this
business called writing.I get to
express my opinions, and other writers enter into dialog here. Sometimes I just
report recent events that have affected my work.Sometimes I use this space to explore my own
thoughts and attitudes.Ultimately I
have to say that I find blogging very rewarding, but not financially so.So why should an author blog?Maybe we should be asking why people read blogs.Probably not to find new books to read, but
maybe to be entertained.Maybe to learn
more about what it’s like to be a writer.Maybe to learn more about the writing business, or the writing
process.And maybe just to get to know a
writer better.If you want to fulfill
any of those needs then you definitely should try posting something every few
days.You might find it rewarding too,
even if it’s not commercially motivated.

Monday, April 21, 2014

There is no shortage of classes on
line, at colleges and at writers conferences that promise to improve your
writing.All may be valuable (I
regularly teach writing classes myself) but I believe that the best way to
become a better writer is through reading… but you have to read the right way.Read technically – If you want success in a particular genre, read what’s
popular in your genre and note the commonalities.Look at the book like a product being sold. How
long a book do these readers prefer? (Fantasy novels and thrillers may range
over 100,000 words.Mysteries suspense
books skew closer to 80,000.) How long are the chapters? How many major
characters? How important is the setting? What are the conventions in this
particular genre? (Cozy mysteries keep the violence off screen; hard boiled
detectives have strong if untraditional moral codes; in Westerns, cowboys are
more philosophical and skilled than they ever were in real life.) You may not
choose to stick to these conventions, but you have to know and understand the
rules to break them successfully.Read
emotionally – Let yourself just be a reader and
FEEL the book you are reading. If you react strongly to a particular scene, ask
yourself why.Is it because of the use
of particular details?Key words?How did this writer get you to feel this
way?When you read dialog that really
feels right, try to figure out exactly what the reader did in that dialog.If you find yourself breathlessly flipping
the pages, back up and see how that writer hooked you so solidly and dragged
you along.And what if a scene doesn’t
move you?Go back and try to figure out
why you didn’t like it.Then you can
say, “Well, I know not to ever do THAT!" Read comparatively – When asked how I learned to write mysteries I usually
answer truthfully, that I outlined three books I particularly loved and
deconstructed them.Thru this technique
I was able to compare these favorites objectively.I could see how plots were developed, what
they all had in common, and how they varied. In later years I’ve come to
compare books in a different way.I find
it valuable to read more broadly, in a variety of genres. I’d never write a
romance or science fiction myself, but I learn things from these other genres
that I can apply to my own writing. Every novel has SOME romance in it.Why not learn how to display that from the
experts?Every fiction author has to
deal with suspension of disbelief.The
best sci-fi authors excel at that.And
while I’ll never write poetry, I have learned about how to use the language and
a bit about rhythm and flow from reading it.There’s nothing wrong with classes
and critiques, but there is no better way to improve your own prose than by
paying attention to that of others.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

In this blog I’ve discussed several facets of the publishing
business – submissions, editing, marketing and more.But one part of our business that I haven’t
gotten into is more ephemeral and harder to define. For want of a better term,
I’m calling this side of the business the human element.It is true that writing is both a skill and an art, while
publishing is a business. But a publisher is more than a venture capitalist,
investing in the potential value of a product.That is because a publisher doesn’t simply invest in a book.He also invests in the author, and dealing
with the artistic temperament of a creative fiction writer is often much more
challenging than dealing with that writer’s work.For example, editing is the process through which good manuscripts
become great manuscripts. At Intrigue Publishing, like most small presses, that
process is collaborative.Professional
editors know how to improve pace, strengthen characters, and fill plot holes.
But only the author knows how to present his theme, establish the chosen
atmosphere and preserve her own voice. We want to end up with the best book
possible, but we never want to take the book away from the writer.Better to let the book and the writer go than
to have an unhappy or bitter author in our stable.The same applies to cover design.Our job is to create a book cover that will get a reader’s attention, express
the book’s genre and tone, and prompt the reader to pick that book up. But
authors feel, often very strongly, that what matters is that their cover
represents their story accurately.So
for many writers it can’t be a great cover if it depicts a scene that doesn’t actually
occur in the book, if characters are facing each other who don’t meet in their
story, or if the heroine is wearing a gown she would never wear.This type of thing may not matter much to the
big six publishers (or are there only five now?) but we don’t want to have one
of our authors out there promoting their book but hating the cover.Every press is bound to make decision an author doesn’t favor (we’ve
debated the font, page layout and even chapter heads with writers) but we
consider every choice carefully and always stand ready to explain why a writer’s
preference isn’t followed.We must never
forget that it takes a special person to create a novel others will want to
read, and that the publishing industry really rests on that human element.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

There is a handful of questions that every published author hears
from time to time.One of the most
frequent is, “Where do you get your ideas?”I usually give some smart aleck response like, “Over at Ideas-R-Us” or
“Aisle 4 at Costco – cuz I need a lot of ideas.” If the actual question is,
“Where do you get your ideas from?” I might say, “From behind the preposition
at the end of that sentence.”But today
I’ll try to actually answer that query.THE NEWS – Most of the ideas formy crime novels and short stories come from newspapers and television
newscasts.Despite their efforts to be
objective, reporters can’t help but present some theories about crimes they
report on.Whenever I hear that I like
to play a “what if” game.What if that
isn’t what happened at all?What if
there’s a totally different motive? What if the witness (the arresting officer,
the spouse) is lying?Then I spin a
story from that.And it doesn’t have to
be a crime story.Sometimes a creative
journalist will report on someone just doing something weird or
unexplained.I can make up a reason for
the person to have base jumped from a city building or started a flash mob in
the Metro that relates to a crime.OTHER WRITERS – Sometimes another writer and I will brainstorm
story ideas.This can be a lot of fun,
each reacting to the other’s plot points with a lively, “and then THIS might
happen” or, “but at the same time, across town THIS is going on.”We might leave that conversation with a clear
story in mind, but the result is always that we go home and end up writing two
very different stories that happen to take off from the same place.This can even happen when I’m reading someone
else’s story.I might get to a point and
say, “No no no… THAT’S not what happens next…” and then I’m off on a story all
my own.YOU – Story ideas often come up in unrelated conversations with friend and fans,
and not even always in person.For
example, in trying to be both funny and provocative, I posted this on Facebook
recently:“Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising
speed for pedophiles...”Well, it did turn out to be a conversation starter, but among the
responses was a friend’s post with evidence that the low speed limit might
actually help stop the bad guys.It was
a news story with this headline: Teens Chase Kidnapping Suspect on Bikes, save5-year old girl. Two teenage boys are being hailed as
heroes after they chased a car carrying a kidnapped girl… on their
bicycles.Depending on your audience it
may or may not matter that the teens were African American and the little girl
was white.But really… with a little
imagination I could pull half a dozen good stories out of that little report. Couldn't you?So that’s where I get MY story ideas.How about you?AND, if you’re a writer, what common
questions do YOU get?

About Me

I am the author of 5 detective novels in the Hannibal Jones series - Blood and Bone, Collateral Damage, The Troubleshooter, Damaged Goods and Russian Roulette, plus 4 action adventure novels, The Payback Assignment, The Orion Assignment, The Piranha Assignment and the Ice Woman Assignment. I'm active in several local writers’ organizations - a past president of the Maryland Writers Association and past vice-president of the Virginia Writers Club. By day I handle media relations for the Defense Department. For more than a decade the American Forces Network carried my radio and television news reports. I've settled in Upper Marlboro, Maryland and launched Intrigue Publishing.